Life, the Universe, and everything

The 10 best Physicists?

In an interesting exercise, The Guardian newspaper recently drew up a list of the “10 best physicists”. I don’t think the list they compiled is in any particular order, but here it is.

Isaac Newton (1643-1727)

Niels Bohr (1885-1962)

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642)

Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

James Clerk Maxwell (1831-1879)

Michael Faraday (1791-1867)

Marie Curie (1867-1934)

Richard Feynman (1918-1988)

Ernest Rutherford (1871-1937)

Paul Dirac (1902-1984)

How many of these names do you recognise? Whilst some are “household names”, others are maybe only known to physicists.

Over the next several months I will post a blog about each of these entries, giving more details of what their contribution(s) to physics were. Any such list is, of course, bound to promote discussion and disagreement, and I can also see that “The Guardian” have also allowed readers to nominate their own names.

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His name does come up, but he is not the most “why is [name removed] not in the list?” comment. Hawking is so overrated it never ceases to amaze me. And, as much as I love The Big Bang Theory, they now seem to be obsessed with him too. Gee, they have Kip Thorne at Caltech, who has in my opinion made far more of a contribution that Hawking has. Why not go on and on about Thorne on TBBT? Because he’s not in a wheelchair, that’s why not.

Here’s a list of contenders, with their reasons for failing:-
Volta He had the potential
Ampere He isn’t a current favourite
Ohm Had a large resistance to the idea
Joule Didn’t have the energy for it.
Kelvin Was cool about the idea
Boltzmann Was constantly trying to get in
Hertz Was frequently trying to get in
Pauli Was excluded on principal
Hooke His image was destroyed by Newton
Heisenberg Couldn’t make his mind up
Michelson and Morley Interfered with the process
Boyle Collapsed under pressure
Hubble Was shifting away from the majority
Hoyle Got himself into a steady state over the idea
Schwarzild Couldn’t see the point in it
Wilson and Penzias Faded into the background
The Braggs Didn’t want to brag about it.
Archimedes The idea was floated, but he lacked leverage
Ptolemy Was too self-centred
Pythagoras Was convinced there should be a top twenty
Kepler Was orbiting the idea
Henry Wound himself up about the core of the concept
Millikan Practically made it, but couldn’t manage the last drop
Fermi Having produced a pile, then statistically, he should have made it.
Bose A condensed form statistically could have made it
Chandrasekhar It was outside his limit
Kapitsa Knew the crocodile was already there.
Higgs Very difficult to locate
Planck Was as close as possible to making it
Dalton Partially made it.
Yukawa Considered as a strong contender, repelled when he got too close
Schrodinger Is currently awaiting a decision
Meitner Should have been included
Geiger Should have been counted upon, but was scattered in conjunction with Marsden
Müller Too close to Geiger
Roentgen Was far too transparent
Berners-Lee Got caught up in a web

I said Bristish. That includes (for good or bad) Maxwell, as well as Rutherford, since in the early XX century it just a part of the British empire. And yes, Planck is missing, and Schrödinger, and Pauli, and Boltzmann, and Euler, and Lorentz, Laplace, Emmy Nöther, Lagrange, Glesch, and a very large etcetera. This list clearly downplays the contribution from France, Italy and Germany who, in the late XIX and early XX century contributed much more than Britain.

There are, surprisingly, more names not in this list than in it!! You did say British. I have no idea whether Maxwell conceived of Britain, if he were living today he probably wouldn’t. But times have changed.

New Zealand gained independence from the British Empire in 1907 it would seem. So should Rutherford be seen as British or as a New Zealander? The work which would’ve got him into this list would’ve been done after this date.

In my list Rutherford, Faraday and Dirac have no place. Both Rutherford and Faraday were great experimentalists, but if they are there then why not Stokes or Millikan or Fermi ? Dirac’s contribution was extremely important, but not unique (Alfred Clebsch did the same for bosons as Dirac did for fermions while receiving half of the recognition). People who changed a field on their own (and therefore deserving of a spot in the top 10) would certainly include Newton and Maxwell, but not the other 3 “British”, specially not above Emmy Nöther, Max Plack or Erwin Heisenberg (who made single-handily paradigm-changing contributions).

Sorry, I mixed first and last names of Heisenberg and Schrödinger. I meant Werner Heisenberg for the discovery of the uncertainly principle which lays foundation to quantum mechanics (together with Planck’s quantization). Although if you allow me I’ll credit the frenchman Fourier on this one since the uncertainly principle is but a consequence of the properties of the Fourier transforms, but since Fourier was more of a mathematician I’ll remove him from the list. My list would also include the swedish Hannes Alfven, who literally invented a whole new field out of nowhere: Magnetohydrodynamics.